ABSTRACT
What kinds of academic knowledge, government policies, and cultural judgements does the figure of the problem gambler produce?
This chapter considers why the focus of academic research and government policy in societies where gambling has become a pervasive aspect of everyday life is overwhelmingly skewed towards the topic of “problem gambling.” I show how the figure of the “problem gambler” is produced through discourses of tabloid and public broadcasting news and current affairs programmes, government policy, and academic research. This allows gambling businesses to penetrate these locations and market to these populations with ease and governments to address the excessive expenditure of consumers through responsible gambling policies. I argue that a narrow focus on problem gambling not only evades ethical questions about the complicity of government and industrial players, it also distracts our attention from more concrete problems for individuals and communities that are posed by the integration of gambling within everyday cultural spaces, products, and moments of finance and play.
